


Kiss Me

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Inception
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:30:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the inception_kink prompt: "A drunken kiss good night and an awkward apology the next day."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: It was Colonel Mustard, in the drawing room, with the revolver.  
> Notes: Set two months after Inception.

Robert wipes steam off the bathroom mirror and stares long and hard into the reflection of his eyes.  
  
They’re the same cornflower-blue as always, though a bit bloodshot and surrounded by grayish circles. The rest of his face is pale under the flush the hot shower had brought to his skin. His dark auburn hair is still wet and there’s fringe hanging in his face, like it had when he was a child.  
  
Not that he’d ever been hungover as a child.  
  
Grimacing, he runs his hands through his hair, till it lays back flat. A slight draft of cooler air hits him, makes him shiver, break out in gooseflesh, then sneeze—which completely messes up his hair once more.  
  
Now glaring at his reflection, he rubs his hair vigorously with a towel, till it’s in spikes and clumps, then hangs the towel back on the rack. He opens the bathroom door and stands in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the mid-morning sunlight streaming in. When they do, he walks over to the window, debating whether to close the curtains or leave them drawn. In the end, he decides to leave them drawn. Osaka is beautiful in the morning, hangover or not, and at any rate, hotel rooms feel like richly-appointed caves when the curtains are closed. Robert’s always thought so.  
  
Despite the sun, the bedroom of his hotel suite is rather chilly after the heated humidity of the bathroom. He’s considering whether he should turn up the thermostat, or simply hurry into his suit—not that he has to be in the office, today, since he’s in Osaka, and Fischer-Morrow doesn’t have a local office. The deal with Proclus global is finally done and, as Uncle Peter might have said, were he not still frothing at the mouth, it’s Miller-time. Robert could literally stay in naked all day, should he choose to. . . .  
  
Oh, but he still has plenty of work to keep himself occupied, however, and one of the advantages of being fully dressed is its ability to help focus one on work. Or so said the late Maurice Fischer.  
  
“The suit, it is,” he murmurs to himself, smiling ruefully, wondering how long he would have to live before finally, truly stepping out of his father’s shadow. Certainly breaking up Fischer-Morrow was a start, but in so many ways, big and small, Robert is still figuring out how to be his own man. He’d spent the first thirty years of his life trying so hard to live up to what he thought Maurice wanted, that he’d never really given thought to what being anything else might be like.  
  
Now, two months after Maurice’s death, he feels he is no closer. In fact, if anything—  
  
Just then there’s a discreet knock at the door, barely audible in the bedroom. That’ll be room service with his usual breakfast of orange juice, coffee, two boiled eggs, and dry wheat toast.  
  
“Come in!” He calls loudly, sighing as he watches a lone bird wing its way across the sky, toward the horizon. “Just leave the tray on the coffee table, thanks!”  
  
He’s learned, throughout his stay, that tipping Japanese service staff is considered rather rude, and doesn’t even bother to reach for his robe so he can go tip the bellhop.  
  
 _At least that’s one more small way I’m not like Maurice. He’d have insisted on tipping the guy, anyway, with no more consideration than if poor man had been an automaton. One that ran on money, as so many people and things did, in his opinion._  
  
Robert’s mouth curves in that rueful smile again, and he watches the bird till it’s out of sight. He doesn’t envy its ability to fly, no, but he does envy its certainty about itself—something that surely keeps it in the air as much as its wings and the laws of physics.  
  
This penchant for reflection is nothing new to Robert, but he’s learned, through gargantuan effort, to put reflection aside for action. As Maurice had always said:  _there’s danger in over-thinking things, Robert. Know when to follow your gut and make your move_.  
  
The move that’s called for now is eating breakfast so he can get to work. Though there’s much less of it than there used to be—since selling, massive chunks of it to Proclus Global, among other companies—there’s certainly more than enough work to keep one CEO and his recently-hired assistants in numbers, graphs, and meetings all day long—  
  
Suddenly reminded that he’d better check in on Rodney and Carol after last night, Robert almost goes for his Blackberry. Then he decides not to. The alcohol had been flowing rather freely at Saito- _san_ ’s, and after the stress of twenty-hour days for the past two weeks, Carol, at least, had gotten plastered. Rodney hadn’t been too far behind. Both of them had been hanging off the arms of Saito- _san_ ’s assistants when Robert had shooed them off for the evening. It was likely that not only were they not awake, but they were probably in no fit state to field a call from their boss.  
  
(Not that Robert is in much better shape, but at least he doesn’t have a superior to report to.)  
  
Wincing at the way his hangover makes its presence felt once more, Robert turns away from the window and wanders towards the suite proper. Despite brushing his teeth, his mouth still tastes like death. Mint-flavored death, and his eyes are still relatively light-sensitive. He doesn’t have Uncle Peter’s, or even Maurice’s tolerance for alcohol. And though he’d drunk conservatively of the warm, fragrant  _sake_  on tap last night, he’d still gotten quite tipsy. He’d only barely been more sober than Rodney and Carol, though he’d drunk only a third as much.  
  
How much Saito- _san_  had had, Robert has no idea. But enough so that he hadn’t pulled away when Robert—  
  
“Oh, fuck me!” Robert exclaims, one hand flying to his chest as he stops dead in the entryway to the main room. His heart is suddenly racing, his muscles gone tense and tight.  
  
Standing near the door to the suite is the  _san_  in question, looking calm, cool, and professional in a grey suit and overcoat, in deference to the chill of the day.  
  
For a moment, he looks just as startled and shocked as Robert feels and surely looks, his eyes sweeping Robert’s body quickly, down-up-down-up, before meeting Robert’s eyes again. A hint of color touches his cheeks, and he glances out the picture window.  
  
“I apologize for showing up unannounced,” he says blandly, slowly in his accented English. “But it is important that we speak.”  
  
And, as if being released from some sort of weird stasis, Robert turns bright red— _all_  over—and covers his crotch with both hands. “Oh, God, I—fuck!“ He gulps, backing out of the entryway and bolting back into the bedroom. He slams the door shut and leans against it, breathing hard.  
  
 _Getting_  hard.  
  
Despite his very best efforts to put the end of yesterday evening—well, technically, early this morning—out of his head, it all comes rushing back with the speed and force of the planet Mercury: the mysterious darkness of Saito’s eyes; the inscrutable but gentle smile; the soft, warm gust of  _sake_ -scented breath as it puffed against Robert’s lips; the  _feel_ , oh, the exquisite  _feel_ of Saito’s soft, sure lips against his own, neither hesitant, nor bold, but somehow insistent and almost. . . .  
  
 _Longing_.  
  
The kiss had been brief, Robert recalls with strangely perfect clarity. Brief and mostly chaste—no tongue, mouths barely open—it’d nonetheless set something in Robert afire. The same part of him that’d made him turn the sterile, good-night bow he’d been sketching to Saito, into a kiss that should have been awkward, and  _was_  . . . but that was also very fine, indeed.  
  
At least on Robert’s end of it.  
  
Lips suddenly tingling, still breathing hard, Robert leans his head back against the door and allows himself to remember last night.  
  


*

  
  
_Robert stumbles a bit as they step outside the restaurant, and Saito catches his arm, holding him steady.  
  
“_Sake _can be a very powerful inebriant if one is not used to it,” he’d noted almost kindly, not letting go of Robert’s arm even when Robert had righted himself. In this fashion, he escorted Robert to the hired car waiting just up the street.  
  
“Tell me about it,” Robert had laughed self-deprecatingly, coloring a bit. He was a hair’s breadth away from being as drunk as his assistants had been. He suspected he was only one or two bowls of _sake _from being utterly annihilated.  
  
He had looked up into Saito’s amused eyes, and some touch of his characteristic hauteur had returned to him. “I notice _you _seem to be handling your_ sake _a bit better.”  
  
“I am used to it,” Saito had said simply, his hand still warm and sure on Robert’s elbow. “However, were I to imbibe, say scotch, I might not ‘handle it better,’ as you say.”  
  
By now, they’d drawn even with Robert’s hired car, and Saito had let go—reluctantly, it’d seemed to Robert, who’d then dismissed the notion as briskly as his inebriated mind could move—of his elbow. He looked momentarily uncomfortable, then smiled as self-deprecatingly as Robert had been moments ago.  
  
“Now that our business is concluded, Mr. Fischer—“  
  
“Please, call me Robert,” Robert had interrupted, feeling amused himself. If Rodney and Carol could call him Robert, then certainly this man, who’d bought a sizeable portion of Robert’s inherited empire, could do so.  
  
“Robert,” Saito had said, as if tasting the word. Then his smile had become more open. Robert had never seen the man wear such a smile, and wondered how well Saito was handling his_sake _, after all. “I should like to join you for breakfast tomorrow morning.”  
  
Robert had blinked then grinned. “Okay, yeah, that’d be great!” He’d replied, realized he was gushing just a little then dismissed that thought, as well. Why on Earth would he be gushing at the prospect of a courtesy breakfast with a former business-rival-cum-business-associate?  
  
Saito had nodded once. “I thank you.” He’d held out his hand for shaking, and Robert had taken it and pumped it three times exactly (_any less makes you look weak, and any more makes you look like a rube, _Maurice had used to say) noting that it was a strong, gentle hand, and used to some sort of manual labor, for it bore calluses, too.  
  
“It’s my pleasure.” Robert blushed for some reason he couldn’t define then realized that Saito wasn’t in any hurry to let go of his hand, or so it seemed. He merely stood there, holding Robert’s hand and looking into his eyes as if he wanted to say something more.  
  
When he finally did, it wasn’t what Robert had been expecting—though what he’d been expecting, he couldn’t honestly say.  
  
“I have come to value your . . . acquaintance and insight over the past two weeks,” Saito began, once again seeming mildly uncomfortable and chagrined. “I would like to consider you a . . . friend.”  
  
“And I, you,” Robert had said, squeezing Saito’s hand a little for emphasis. “I mean—I know you and my father were rivals, and you didn’t exactly get along—“  
  
“If you will forgive me for saying so, Robert, your father was not an easy man to get along with,” Saito had murmured, as if loathe to speak so of the dead too loudly. But his eyes had searched Robert’s solemnly until Robert looked away.  
  
“I, uh. I know. Believe me . . . if anyone knows, it’s me.” A fake, but easy smile, Robert had long ago learned, was great for covering up discomfort. At least as long as it’s done well, and since Maurice died, it seems that the only thing Robert can do well anymore is sell away the man’s life’s work piecemeal and smile while he does it.  
  
He meets Saito’s gaze once more, suspecting—and rightly so—that his smile isn’t fooling either of them. He sighs, opting for a little honesty. At this late date, it hardly matters, but it couldn’t hurt, either. “Maurice was . . . a unique man. Strong, smart, self-made, beholden to no one. It made him a bit . . . insistent to have his own way. And when he was thwarted—something managed by very few people, of whom you are one, Saito- _san_ —it made the old man . . . ill-tempered and occasionally spiteful. To everyone around him.”  
  
“Indeed.” Saito had agreed, surely from his own set of experiences. “And please, call me ‘Toru.’”  
  
“Alright . . . Toru.” Robert had cleared his throat and tugged his hand free. Then he’d remembered his manners and made as if to bow—but he’d stopped half way when Saito had reached out and touched his arm.  
  
“That is not necessary,” he’d said, and Robert, still leaning forward, had put his hand on Saito’s, meaning to remove it and finish the bow. But instead he’d covered the man’s hand with his own and left it there.  
  
Without breaking gazes, Saito had stepped forward, his hand tightening on Robert’s arm and pulling him forward as well. That solemn, searching look was back, leavening but not hiding or mitigating the sudden heated nature of the gaze.  
  
No, nor was there any attempt _made _to hide or mitigate that nature.  
  
“Oh,” Robert had breathed, feeling a quick, answering heat within himself unfurl and spread throughout his body, the lion’s share of it landing squarely in his gut. The gut that, despite Maurice’s insistence, Robert had rarely ever had the courage to listen to.  
  
The gut whose clamoring he had for once heeded, and leaned in. Saito had met him halfway, those dark, deep eyes never closing._  
  


*

  
  
Sagging against the bedroom door, Robert touches his lips.  
  
 _It is important that we speak,_  Saito had said, and so help him, Robert wants to run and hide, like he’d done last night, after the kiss had ended. Robert clearly remembers turning an unspeakable shade of crimson, and turning to the hired car. He’d fumbled with the handle until Saito’s hand had closed over his own.  
  
“Robert,” he’d said gently, and that gentle understanding had nearly undone Robert. Made him want to turn back around and throw himself into Saito’s strong arms and just  _rest_  there, until it felt like he could breathe properly again. And, pressed against Saito’s heartbeat, inhaling the scents of cologne,  _sake_ , and warm skin, Robert had thought he just might be able to regain his breath. And his equilibrium.  
  
As it was, Saito’s touch on his hand had made him jump and bristle like a scalded cat.  
  
He’d yanked his hand away, and instead of catching it (as Robert had half-hoped he would) Saito had merely opened the door for him.  
  
“Thank you,” Robert had said automatically—this, a lesson learned not from his father, but from his mother. A habit he’d never really tried to break despite Maurice’s imprecations not to thank people for every little thing.  
  
“You are most welcome,” Saito had said, and paused tangibly. “Robert, will I still see you in the morning?”  
  
“If you must.” Robert had glanced over his shoulder. Saito’s face had gone unreadable, once more. “But it may just be best to go our separate ways. Our business is done, after all.”  
  
“Is it?” Saito’s smile had been thin and wry, and Robert went crimson once more, unable to help it under that somehow measuring gaze. “I disagree. But we will discuss it in detail in the morning. Until then.”  
  
He’d bowed shallowly, but slowly, then took himself off. Robert had turned to watch him go—indeed, had watched until Saito’s own car was out of sight.  
  
Robert had then slammed his way into his car, the beginnings of tomorrow’s hangover already making themselves felt. The driver had, without comment, pulled smoothly into traffic. Sooner rather than later, they were at Robert’s hotel.  
  
Without tipping the man—even drunk, Robert remembers his manners—he’d gone straight for his room, thankfully encountering no one other than the night manager and desk clerk. And in spite of the evening’s events, despite Robert’s own confusion and embarrassment, he’d dropped immediately off to sleep, and this morning. . . .  
  
He’d put last night out of his mind with a sheer force of will that would’ve surprised anyone who knew him, especially his father.  
  
Because of that willful forgetfulness, he’d completely forgotten about agreeing to breakfast with Saito. Now, there’s nothing for it, but to go back out there and deal. Deal with the fact that he’d not only kissed this powerful, intimidating man—not only that this man had seem Robert naked in more ways than one, but the intense feeling of need that was once more welling up within him. Need to feel Saito’s arms around him, keeping him . . . safe? Warm? Or maybe just  _keeping_ him?  
  
Definitely to feel Saito’s mouth on his own again, in another of those brief, respectful-but-oh-with-the-promise-of-so-much-more kisses.  
  
Robert leans his head back against the door again, willing away his hardness rather unsuccessfully.  
  
 _Thankfully_ , he thinks ironically,  _a well-tailored suit may cover a multitude of sins._  
  


*

  
  
Robert steps out of the bedroom in his best, impeccably pressed suit, a professional smile plastered on his face.  
  
Saito is standing by the window, looking out distractedly.  
  
“Saito- _san_ ,” Robert says, reflexively smoothing his hands over his suit jacket. His erection had mercifully gone away, but it hadn’t gone terribly far. “I apologize for earlier—I was expecting the bellhop.”  
  
One ironic eyebrow quirks up when Saito glances over at him. “And do you always greet the bellhop while undressed? If so, he’s a lucky man, indeed.”  
  
There’s goes Roberts professional smile, to be replaced by that awful crimson flush. “I—he usually just leaves breakfast and goes.” Robert wraps his arms around himself nervously, realizes how that must look—weak, uncertain,  _scared_ —and forces his arms back down to his side.  
  
Saito turns fully to Robert, and puts his hands in his pockets. His gaze is measuring and otherwise unreadable, just like it’d been last night, but his mouth—ah, that  _mouth_ —is turned up ever so slightly at the corners.  
  
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind sharing what you find so amusing, Mr. Saito.” It’s out before Robert can stop himself, and tinged with genuine asperity. “Or do I want to know?”  
  
Now Robert gets a full smile, and that irks him even more—sets him on edge for no reason he cares to examine.  
  
“Sometimes, Robert, a smile is merely that: a smile,’ Saito says with a sanguinity Robert envies. “And did I not ask you to call me Toru?”  
  
“I think it’s best that I don’t—that we keep our dealings purely professional,” Robert says, as close as he can come to alluding to last night’s kiss. But he hopes his meaning is conveyed clearly.  
  
“I disagree.” Saito’s smile becomes a bit less cryptic and a whole lot warmer. Or maybe it just becomes  _heated_. “I disagree very much.”  
  
“Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?” Robert tries on Maurice’s gruff, no-nonsense voice. “Our business together is done. You have what you wanted—a rather large share of my father’s empire now sitting in your coffers. What more could you possibly want from me?”  
  
Another wry, ironic sort of look, and Robert turns crimson again. “ _That_  is not on offer, Mr. Saito.”  
  
“You did not give me a chance to answer your question.” Saito laughs, as if Robert has somehow delighted him. “What I want from you is a kiss. One kiss.”  
  
Feeling disappointed for reasons he also doesn’t care to explore, Robert clears his throat and looks away. At the coffee table, upon which sits his long-awaited breakfast. He wonders briefly what the bellhop had thought when Saito had answered the door. “You’ve already gotten it.”  
  
Saito approaches him slowly, as if approaching a skittish horse, hands held out placatingly. Robert, however, is in no mood to be placated, and balks just as defiantly  _as_  a skittish horse, taking a step back for every step Saito takes forward.  
  
“I would like another kiss. One that we are both sober enough to fully appreciate,” Saito clarifies.  
  
Robert realizes he’s backed all the way to the bedroom doorway, and stops cold. Saito, however, does not. At least not until a mere foot of air separates them. That’s not nearly enough distance for Robert’s liking . . . and yet it’s too much, as well.  
  
“May I kiss you?” Saito asks, as formally as he’d asked to do business, once upon a time.  
  
“Why? So I can be yet another conquest with the Fischer name?” Robert asks angrily, yet another thing that slips out before he can stop himself. Not that he’d had any idea it was waiting at the tip of his tongue. But now that he’s said it, he can feel the burn of true ire pushing away his embarrassment and whatever . . . untoward desires he might have entertained.  
  
Saito’s brow furrows with consternation. “That is not how I would think of such a kiss.”  
  
Robert laughs sarcastically. “Really? Then how  _would_  you think of it—pray, tell, Saito- _san_?”  
  
Saito takes another step closer, and Robert blocks the doorway. But Saito’s intent hadn’t been to come in, but to simply move closer. Close enough to reach out and brush the callused tips of his fingers, feather-light, down Robert’s cheek. Robert turns his face away, but far too reluctantly for his own peace of mind.  
  
“I would think of it as an honor,” Saito murmurs, his eyes flicking down to Robert’s lips briefly then back up to his eyes. “I would think of it as an event to be remembered even as I lay on my deathbed. I will surely die with many other regrets, but I do not wish this to be one of them.”  
  
Robert blinks and gapes. Then somehow collects himself enough to find his once customary cynicism. “Pretty words. It’s a pity I don’t believe them. But shall I tell you what I  _do_  believe? I believe that you want to do more than kiss me. You want to fuck me, isn’t that right?”  
  
Saito sighs, running one finger along the dark line of his left eyebrow. “I will not deny that it would please greatly me if we were to become lovers.”  
  
“I’ll bet it would. You’d have found one more way to stick it to the old man, wouldn’t you? Screw me, and you’d be screwing him, too, only in a slightly different sense. Isn’t that right?”  
  
Now Saito looks confused. “I don’t understand—“  
  
Robert sights impatiently. “You don’t want me, you want what I stand for: your old rival’s only son—his prized possession in your bed. The final checkmate.”  
  
Saito’s shaking his head. “That is not why I want you Robert. Your father has nothing to do with my feelings for you.”  
  
Robert rolls his eyes. “Oh, so now there are  _feelings_? This gets better and better!”  
  
“I think you are brave and smart, and your sense of honor is far greater than it would be for many men in your position. I think you are a kind man and, I have noticed to my distraction, an almost unbearably lovely one, as well.” Saito steps closer, and this time, Robert does take another step back.  
  
Saito sighs again, and takes a step back, himself. His face closes off, and he bows shallowly to Robert. “But I see this is of no import to you. That I have, in fact, caused you distress. I apologize for being so forward last night. And today. While I may have had too much  _sake_  to be fully in control of my actions then, this morning I have no such excuse now.” He bows again. “I will leave you to your breakfast.”  
  
And with that, he turns smartly and strides toward the suite door.  
  
Robert opens his mouth—really, it’s become almost fascinating to find out what’ll come out, these days—and says defensively: “I—how can I trust what you say? You’ve made it your life’s work to destroy or break down anything with the Fischer name on it. Why should I be any different?”  
  
Saito pauses, his hand on the doorknob.  
  
“You are different because you simply are,” he says slowly, as if trying to find the right words. “I have not always been . . . honorable in my dealings with the your family. I, myself, have been spiteful and difficult. But I wish to be honorable from this point on. I have no wish to see you destroyed or broken down, no wish to compete with a dead man or to take our some pointless vengeance against his surviving heir. I wish only to. . . .”  
  
When Saito doesn’t continue, Robert steps out of the bedroom hesitantly, unaware he’s even doing so. “What? What do you wish, Saito- _san_ ”  
  
Saito glances back at him, and bends another wry smile his way. “You have already given your answer on the matter, and I do not mean to task you any further with requests for what will not be.”  
  
Robert lets out a breath, though it sounds like a snorting laugh. “You and your damn kiss. You’re like a broken record. Are you really  _this_  hard up for someone to swap spit with? Alright, goddamnit. Fine. One kiss.” Moved by some impulse he can’t bear to look at too closely, Robert stalks toward Saito, who half-turns to face him. When he’s gotten close enough to reach out and touch Saito, he does so, grabbing the man by the lapels and pulling him close. He has a moment to see the look of complete surprise on that saturnine face before he’s closing his eyes and bringing his mouth to Saito’s.  
  
There are no hearts and flowers—no choirs of cherubs singing. Just the warm dry press of their lips gone slick as their mouths open a little. Then Saito’s tongue is tickling patiently at Robert’s lips until they open wider and—  
  
Saito’s hands settle lightly on his waist and Robert’s come up to land uncertainly on Saito’s chest. And his body does something it’s never done before: it molds itself to another man’s, at once pliant and submissive. He moans into the kiss, wanting— _needing_  more. He’s never been kissed like this and wonders if it’s because he’s kissing a man (and wouldn’t his father have something interesting to say about  _that_?) or because he’s kissing  _Saito_. It’s not a hard or rough kiss, but it’s demanding, possessive, and  _thorough_ , as if Saito’s trying to learn him by taste in the space of a single kiss. . . .  
  
Eventually they have to come up for air, and when they do, Saito leans their foreheads together and squeezes Robert’s waist. “Thank you,” he breathes, and Robert shivers.  
  
“Y-you’re welcome.” He shivers again, and Saito’s arms wind around his waist, as if in an attempt to warm him. When Robert opens his eyes, he can just barely make out Saito watching him.  
  
“You are shivering, Robert- _chan_.”  
  
 _And you know why, damn you._  “Saito- _san_ —“  
  
“ _Toru_.” The word is a gentle ghost of air on Robert’s lips. Another pleasant shiver goes through him, and liquid heat begins to pool determinedly at his groin.  
  
“Toru, then. I—“ Robert realizes he doesn’t know what to say. Indeed, what  _can_  he say? Pressed against a man who was once his enemy—who now owns more of Fischer-Morrow-that-was than Robert does? Pressed against the first man he’s ever kissed (but not the first man he’s  _wanted_  to kiss, oh, no, merely the first man he’s wanted to kiss badly enough to  _let_  himself) and getting hard from that kiss?  
  
Pressed against a man who’s also getting hard, and all because of him?  
  
What can Robert say regarding any of that?  
  
He shakes his head, frustrated and confused. “I don’t understand. Any of this.”  
  
“I yearn for you,” Saito— _Toru_  says gravely. “From the first time I sat across from you at a conference table, I have wanted you. Not because your last name is Fischer, but because you are the most beautiful person I have ever seen. And having spent so much time working with you lately has only intensified this . . . yearning for you that I feel. You are all I that can think about when I am with you. When we are apart, it’s . . . worse.”  
  
Robert sighs, shaking his head again and leaning back to look Toru in the eyes. What he sees there—open, solemn, and yes,  _yearning_ —literally takes his breath away. He’s never seen a look like that. At least not one directed at himself. And therein lies the problem.  
  
How can he trust such a look, when he can’t accept it in relation to himself?  
  
Toru smiles ruefully. “I see you still do not believe me. Perhaps  _cannot_  believe me.”  
  
Flushed and embarrassed at being seen into so easily, Robert looks down at his hands, still laying flat on Toru’s chest. He can feel the strong, steady heartbeat inside it. “Say I did believe you—that you really want me as badly as you claim . . . say that I want you back. That I want to explore this . . .  _thing_  that’s between us—“ he’s briefly swept away by the thrill, the sheer newness of what lay between them, hard and growing harder against Robert’s stomach. Robert does, indeed, wish to explore it. Though surely he can’t be so self-indulgent as to  _let himself_. Right? “What then?”  
  
Looking surprised, Toru reaches up to cup Robert’s face in his hand. His thumb strokes Robert’s cheek almost tenderly. Another thing Robert hasn’t experienced before, at least not from anyone who wasn’t his late mother.  
  
“Then, we ‘take it slowly,’ as you Westerners like to say.” Toru frowns a little. “I would like to take the time to court you properly, as a sign of respect, and as a token of my affection. I swear on my honor I will never push you for more than you are ready for, or more than you wish to give.”  
  
“I’m not ready for any of this and I don’t know  _what_  I want to give. Or even what I  _have_  to give,” Robert admits lowly. “I’ve never been in a relationship that wasn’t about mutual connections and convenience. Never been with anyone that didn’t care about my last name or what that name could do for them.”  
  
Toru sways them slowly, as if to the strains of a song only he can hear, the hand still on Robert’s waist slipping around to the small of his back. “We already have all the same connections and you would never be a mere convenience to me. The Fischer name only matters to me because, like a curse, it once more stands between me and what I want.”  
  
Robert’s eyebrows shoot up. “Which is—?“  
  
“You.”  
  
Shivering again, Robert realizes he could never get tired of hearing that. It’s a scary, somehow liberating thought that a  _feeling_  could be so . . . addictive. That he could, all his life, have been craving this feeling of being wanted, without even knowing it.  
  
“You know, no one’s ever called the Fischer name a curse, before. Not to my face, anyway.” A soft laugh escapes his lips before he can stop it, and Toru smiles and darts in to steal another kiss. This one is short, but it sizzles and lingers well after Toru’s pulled away.  
  
“I, uh . . . thought you only wanted one of those,” Robert stammers, his face heating up under Toru’s hand. He can only imagine what Maurice would think if he could see them like this. As it is, the old man must be spinning in his grave, a thought that, surprisingly, doesn’t bother Robert one bit.  
  
“I was willing to  _accept_  one kiss. But I wanted more.” Toru’s smile turns wistful, his touch tender. Robert licks his tingling lips, noting the way Toru’s eyes immediately flick to them. “I will _always_  want more.”  
  
Like a flower in the sunshine, something within Robert opens—fairly  _blooms_  under Toru’s words and bright, acquisitive regard. “Tell me again.”  
  
Smiling, Toru sways them some more then dips Robert gracefully, easily; the next step in their own private dance. Robert can only hope Toru knows what the step after that is, as well. “I want you, Robert- _chan_.”  
  
Robert’s arms slide up and around Toru’s neck and he lets himself be pulled back upright and into a tight, possessive embrace. He gazes long into Toru’s dark eyes, takes a deep breath, and throws his caution, his hesitation, his fear to the wind. He takes a leap of faith, and trusts that Toru will be there to catch him.  
  
“Then kiss me,” he whispers.  
  
Toru does.


	2. Moving Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the inception_kink prompt: "The day Robert officially came to live with Saito in Japan. Last-minute doubts, nervousness, and Saito carrying Robert over the threshold, please?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I only steal hearts. And occasionally wallets.  
> Notes: Set one year after Inception. A sequel to "Kiss Me." Can be read as a standalone.

“You’re insane. You know that, right?”

Robert’s reflection waits for an answer to its question. An answer Robert has so intention of giving, because he’s rather afraid he knows what that answer will be.

And it’s too late to back out, now. Right?

Right. And even if it wasn’t, Robert wouldn’t because this is what he  _wants_. What they  _both_ want.

“I  _do_  want this,” Robert tells his cynical, dubious reflection. “I may be scared—who wouldn’t be, at least a  _little_ , I guess—but I want this more than anything.”

“What is it that you want, Robert- _chan_?”

Looking over his shoulder, Robert smiles at Toru, who looks sleepy about the face and rumpled about the hair. He’d cleared his schedule today so he could be here with Robert for the Big Day, and Robert had decided to let the man sleep in. Till the late, late hour of 8a.m., at which time, Robert had kissed him awake. Toru—who, despite his habitually early mornings, is very much _not_  a morning person, unlike Robert—had grumbled a little, but responded  _gratifyingly_  to those kisses. Afterwards, he’d drifted off to sleep once more, and Robert hadn’t the heart to wake him again.

Now, at the late hour of 9:30a.m., Toru leans in the doorway of the bathroom, watching Robert questioningly and fondly. It’s the look that says that whatever Robert wants, he’ll have in his hand by noon, if Toru Saito has anything to say about it.

Robert happily abandons his pointless conversation with his reflection and turns to face Toru, leaning back against the Italian marble counter. “You. Only you.”

Smiling the pleased, gentle smile that’s reserved only for Robert, Toru—naked as the day he was born—strides toward Robert, arms open. “You have me. Always.”

“Mmm, that’s what I like to hear,” Robert murmurs, letting himself be gathered into Toru’s strong arms for another kiss good-morning kiss. And good-morning and good-morning and good-morning. Toru’s hands wander Robert’s back, warm and callused (Toru, no sedentary CEO, practices Kendo daily), settling, finally, on the back of Robert’s neck and the curve of his ass, respectively. He’s hard and hot against Robert’s stomach.  _Insistent_. This is no run-of-the-mill morning-wood to be satisfied with sweet, sleepy frottage. No, this is a hard-on that means _business_.

“We barely have time to shower, Toru- _chan_.” Robert chastises half-heartedly, but he lets himself be kissed again. The kiss turns into a clinch when Toru begins nuzzling his neck with intent. “The movers will be here any minute.”

“They have no other appointments today, I have seen to that.” Toru whispers in Robert’s ear before nibbling it. “And they will be well compensated for their time.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Robert says wryly, wrapping his arms around Toru’s neck and sliding one hand into his hair.  _It’s as if,_  he reflects bemusedly,  _we’ve both been turned into teenagers again. How is it that we want each other this much, and all the time? Is this normal, or am I just this lucky?_

Robert has asked himself this question on a near-hourly basis for the past year, but at least he’s stopped waiting for some doom-bearing ‘other shoe’ to drop.

Smiling, he tugs Toru’s head back by the hair—which he’s grown out because Robert had once idly wondered what he’d look like with longer hair, and Toru can deny him nothing, it seems, and vice versa—and looks into his dark, hot eyes.

“Okay. But we can skip the foreplay, just this once. I’m still slick from last night.” Robert bounces up on his toes to kiss the tip of Toru’s nose, then turns to face the mirror again, bracing his hands on the counter. His reflection, for the nonce, is silent, a look of hungry anticipation on its pale face. It’s also pliant as reflection-Toru positions it, murmuring praise and endearments.

Sooner, rather than later, Toru’s guiding himself into Robert with one hand, and stroking Robert’s back with the other, gentling him the same way he had the first time they’d danced this particular dance. Now, like then, Robert hisses at the burning stretch, his body clenching tight as if it’s caught between rejecting the intruder and welcoming him. But the matter’s decided for it, because Toru slides the final few inches home in one powerful thrust that makes them both gasp.

Robert’s breathing stutters and his arms shake. “Tell me,” he breathes as his body acclimates itself to Toru. “Tell me, tell me, tell me.”

“I love you,” Toru kisses into the skin of his shoulder blade. Robert lets out a long, low moan and stretches like a cat. "I love you."

“Then love me, Toru.”

One more kiss, then Toru grasps Robert’s hips, steadying him as he pulls out and thrusts back in over and over, slowly and gently . . . then rather less so. Robert groans loudly and pushes back into each thrust, craving the intense feeling of fullness and completion that always comes with this act.

“God,  _yes_  . . .  _Toru_. . . !”

“Robert- _chan_ ,” Toru exhales, his voice a barely audible rumble over the loud, terse smacking sounds of flesh against flesh, and the slick, deliciously  _obscene_  sounds of flesh  _in_  flesh. “You feel so  _good_. . . .”

At some point, their eyes meet in the mirror, never looking away until they climax at almost exactly the same moment.

There was a time Robert would have scoffed at such an idea—dismissed it as the wishful thinking of someone on a steady diet of hack romance novels. Now, he’s too busy living it . . . crying out his love and devotion, reaffirming to them both that they belong to each other—always have and always will.

When they’ve recovered enough to shower, they spend more time kissing and touching, lost in their afterglow, than actually getting clean.

*

Watching fretfully from the double doorway as the movers unload the first wave of furniture from their trucks, Robert’s doubts manifest as quite unwarranted worry about the state of his possessions—soon to be  _their_  possessions.

“ _Be careful with that_ credenza, _it was my mother’s,_ ” he calls to the movers nervously in his halting Japanese. Not that he has to. These are the most professional, most sought-after removalists in all of Japan. They take their jobs and reputation  _very_  seriously. “ _It’s very dear to me._ ”

“Robert- _chan_ , you are—what is the phrase?  _Stressing out_?—over nothing.” Toru says from behind Robert then slides his arms around Robert’s waist in a loose embrace. Robert leans back into it for a moment, drawing strength from Toru’s nearness and certainty.

“Hardly  _nothing_ , Toru. Most of this stuff is art and antiques, and those don’t travel very well.” Robert sighs discontentedly as three moving men approach with the credenza, and two more come behind them with the armoire. Both pieces were his mother’s and he literally could not put a price on them. “When I see that everything’s arrived in one piece, you’ll be amazed at how fast I de-stress.”

“Hmm.” Toru takes Robert’s clipboard (on it is a checklist of everything Robert’s had moved from the houses in Sydney and Los Angeles) and looks at it, flipping pages up and skimming the items listed. “By the way, what is a ‘credenza’?”

“It’s the big thing, there.” Robert points at the approaching credenza, and lets Toru back them both out of the huge double doorway. “It’s a sort of cabinet-cum-sideboard. My mother used it to keep her family’s heirloom china and . . . I was, um . . . thinking it could be  _our_  china, now.” Robert glances at Toru, his face coloring. Toru smiles and places the clipboard on the passing credenza so he can take Robert in his arms for a brief kiss that somewhat calms Robert’s nerves.

“I think that is an excellent idea. I would be honored to share in your family’s traditions.”

“And I yours.”

They watch the armoire pass by. Then, smiling, Toru tugs Robert outside, past the hedges and down the driveway, a bit. Another set of moving men pass them silently, pulling along a huge box on even huger dollies.  **PIANO**  the box is marked, and  **FRAGILE** , in English and Japanese.

The Steinway was his mother’s, as well. She’d been something of a musical prodigy—it runs through the McClelland side of the family, just as competitiveness runs through the Fischer side—and had taught Robert to play from the time he was old enough to reach the keys, up until she got too sick to leave her bed.

In the years since, Robert has played infrequently, but he’d decided to bring the piano with him, anyway. Toru has more than enough space for a Music Room Grand.

_Maybe I could take up playing again. Certainly there’s no Maurice here to silently disapprove of me actually having a talent outside of business. And Toru encourages anything I do. He’s really an amazing man,_  Robert muses as the first set of moving men makes their way back outside to start on the larger, boxed works of art Robert couldn’t bare to live without. Sculptures and paintings and the like.

(Surprisingly, he and Toru have the same aesthetic taste, tending toward British colonial revivalism in their art and architecture. Robert had taken these complimentary tastes as proof that their new living arrangement was going to work out well. Now, however, that doesn’t keep him from worrying about said arrangement all over again, try though he does not to.)

“What are you thinking about?” Toru asks suddenly, turning Robert in his arms and staring down into his eyes with sober curiosity. Robert smiles gamely. 

“Nothing, just . . . wool-gathering. Day-dreaming.” He sighs again when Toru’s eyebrows quirk up, as if asking for clarification. “Is it weird that I’m so nervous about this? About us living together officially? I mean, we’ve practically been living together since last year. I spend more time in Osaka than I do in Sydney and Los Angeles put together.”

Toru tilts his head thoughtfully. “I do not think it is ‘weird’ to be cautious about something new, or about turning the casual into something more . . . formal.”

“Toru, honey, we’ve never been  _casual_.” Robert laughs quietly. And it’s true. There’d been something . . .  _inevitable_  about them from the beginning. From their first (sober) kiss in Robert’s hotel room, to the first night Robert spent at this very home he’s moving into, Toru’s insisted that their courtship be somewhat slow—and it had been, until a sexually frustrated Robert had all but tackled the man into bed, one night—but at no point had it ever been  _casual_.

“You are smiling.”

Now, Robert beams up at Toru. “Why, yes, sir, I am.”

“Am I allowed to inquire why?”

Stilted words, but playful tone. Robert laughs again and kisses Toru’s cheek. “Nope. But you’re allowed to guess.”

“Hmm.” Toru’s smiling now, too. He has dimples that Robert rarely sees, and loves to tease him about. “You are thinking about . . . playing the piano for me later.”

Robert rolls his eyes and groans. “Toru, I told you, I haven’t played in years. I’m probably horrible.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“Your faith in me is sweet and misplaced.”

Toru shakes his head. “I think it is quite justified. You have accomplished everything I have  _ever_ seen you set your mind to.”

Robert rolls his eyes again, but blushes. Toru’s praise makes him feel validated in a way no one’s—not even Maurice’s—has ever done. “ _Must_  you have the last word, Saito- _san_?”

“Yes,” Toru says with his customary sanguinity. Robert sighs yet again, but lets it pass, just as he lets the moving men pass by with the Degas, without telling them to  _be careful_.

“Seriously, though. Am I being a goose?” He asks suddenly, cupping Toru’s face in his hands and searching his eyes. “ _You_  know I love you.  _I_  know I love you. I’m pretty sure I want to spend the rest of my life waking up next to you . . . so why does the prospect of finally,  _finally_  getting to do that make me so fucking . . . jumpy?”

“Robert—this is a big step, the merging of two separate lives into one. Only a fool would not have reservations, worries, and second thoughts.” Toru’s smile turns a bit rueful again. “ _My_  worry is that the saying ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ will hold true, and you will . . . tire of being with me before another year has passed.”

“Of  _course_  I won’t!” He kisses Toru tenderly, urgently. “I would  _never_! If anything, you’ll get sick of  _me_. I’m whiny, messy, and I was apparently born in a barn, because I can’t close a door to save my life—never mind turning out the lights when I leave a room—“

Toru silences him with another kiss, as passionate as it is reassuring. Robert only barely notices the moving men shuttling his possessions back and forth past them. When the kiss ends, he’s a bit dazed and his knees are being mulish about not buckling.

“What, ah . . . what was that for?” he asks, blinking. “Not that you need a reason.  _Ever_.”

“That was because I love you, Robert Allen Fischer.”

Robert searches those dark, utterly  _open_  eyes for qualifiers, and finds none. It’s a relief and guilt all rolled into one. He wishes he could be more sure and less worried if only for Toru’s sake.

Toru  _deserves_  at least that much, and probably more than Robert will ever have to give. In fact, all Robert has to offer—all he’s had since practically the beginning—is his love. But according to Toru, that’s more than enough for him.

“I love you, too,” he whispers, leaning their foreheads together and pushing his doubts and fears to the side. Now isn’t the time to hash them out. Now is the time to celebrate the joining together of their lives. Only time will take care of the rest, he realizes, and in the meantime he plans to at least pretend to confidence he doesn’t yet have. And who knows? Maybe acting the part will help it come true just that much faster.

“C’mon,” he says warmly, taking Toru’s hand and pulling him back toward the house. “We really should be supervising the movers so that everything gets put in its proper place.”

Toru squeezes his hand and follows him back up the drive. But he stops them at the door, answering Robert’s questioning glance with a grin. The next thing Robert knows, he’s being swept up into Toru’s arms and kissed thoroughly as Toru carries him through the doorway.

“Put me down!” Robert laughs, holding on for dear life, though Toru shows no signs of dropping him. “What’re you  _doing_?!”

Toru carries him down the hall, unhurried. “Following an old Western tradition.”

It takes Robert a moment, and when he gets there, he snorts. Really, Toru gets the  _strangest_ ideas in his head, sometimes. “Just because I like taking it up the ass doesn’t make me your bride, Toru.”

“You’re not my  _bride_ , no, but you  _are_  my love, and I wish to bring you into your new home properly.” Toru takes him into the spacious (cavernous, really) living room, where the piano is being carefully unpacked. He sets Robert down gently, but doesn’t let go of him. Hugs him close and kisses his temple, instead. “Welcome to your home, my love,” he says softly.

Robert means to come back with something sarcastic about Toru’s misplaced sense of chivalry, but when he opens his mouth, what stumbles off his tongue is: “Thank you. I’m glad to be here. With you.”

And time must be a strange thing, indeed, because somewhere between the threshold and the living room, Robert’s nerves have faded away. For the time being, at least, he has no doubts, no reservations, no fears.

_Well, what do you know about that?_  he thinks bemusedly, gazing into Toru’s eyes with open wonder. As always, the reverent, seemingly endless love and affection he sees there floors him . . . takes his breath clean away.

“Ragtime,” he says breathlessly, but decisively, and Toru’s eyebrows shoot up.

“I beg your pardon?”

Robert grins and takes Toru’s hand again, leading him closer to the mostly unboxed piano. “I don’t know how she’ll sound since she hasn’t been tuned, yet—and it’s been a long time since I played more than scales and exercises on her. But I could play you some Ragtime. I think you’d like it. It was, ah, my mother’s favorite style of music, though it scandalized my father whenever she played it.”

Toru chuckles, linking their fingers together. “Is that so? Then I would very much like to hear this ‘Ragtime.’”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Robert kisses Toru’s cheek. “Never two did love so true as we,” he murmurs quietly, blushing when Toru gazes at him as if he’s said something as touching as it is profound. Robert clears his throat then says a little louder: “A down-home Rag for my baby, and no, sir, I don’t mean ‘maybe. . . .’”

And they watch, hand in hand, as the movers finish unpacking the piano: Toru smiling enigmatically, and Robert humming the  _Doctor Jazz Stomp_  all the while.

 


End file.
